Afghan coach seek BCCI support to develop cricket in Afghanistan

The cricket board of Afghanistan has called for the BCCI to provide more support to Afghanistan cricket, highlighting England’s support for their neighbouring Associate nations.

Kabir Khan, the Afghanistan coach said, “If you look at England they go out of their way to support the associate cricket nations in their region, which include Holland, Ireland and Scotland.”

“They allow their players to play in their county and league system, while giving them valuable assistance through various coaching programmes.” Khan said adding that “In comparison, South Asia has four Test-playing nations – Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – [yet despite this] we don’t get the same kind of support, except for Pakistan. India has the influence and money to do a lot for Afghanistan cricket if they wanted. But so far we are still waiting.

He also added, “There’s a lot of passion for cricket in Afghanistan, and there are good players, but we suffer mainly because we don’t have a domestic cricket structure. We don’t get enough matches in this region.”

The Afghanistan team is currently in Lahore for a month-long conditional camp which also includes a series of matches against Pakistan A and several regional sides. The team trained at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore, where they were granted access to all facilities and coaches at hand.

The Afghan cricket team is due to play against Scotland in the ICC League series 4-day match apart from 2 ODIs and one T20 in preparation for World T20 next year. It has set its sights on the 2015 World Cup to be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand.